LONDON – Lina Lansberg ended her night with a badly battered right eye and a unanimous decision victory in a rematch with Lucie Pudilova.
But as Lansberg (7-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) explained in her post-fight interview, she felt like she deserved only one of those as she declared Pudilova (6-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) the rightful winner.
The women’s bantamweight bout opened the preliminary card of today’s UFC Fight Night 107 event at The O2 in London. It streamed on UFC Fight Pass.
While the early action in this fight took place in the clinch, it was at distance where Pudilova did some of her best work. As she pressed forward against a visibly tiring Lansberg in the second and third rounds, Pudilova did repeated damage with her long left jab and follow-up right.
For her part, Lansberg responded to the shots by dropping for takedowns, a strategy that worked in the second but came up short in the third. After ending the middle round on top of Pudilova, hammering her with punches and elbows, Lansberg couldn’t complete the same takedown in the final round, and she ate a torrent of elbows from Pudilova just for trying.
That left Lansberg gushing blood from her face, with a badly swollen right eye only getting worse as Pudilova continued to target it until the final round. That seemed like it might clinch the close fight for Pudilova, but when the fight went to the scorecards all three judges had it for Lansberg, with scores of 29-28 across the board.
That prompted boos from the crowd, which only gave way to cheers when Lansberg got on the microphone in her post-fight interview and told her opponent that is was she who truly deserved the win.
Immediately after the bout, UFC officials said Lansberg was being transported to a local hospital for precautionary reasons.
With the victory, Lansberg gets her first UFC win after a TKO loss to Cristiane Justino in her UFC debut in September. Pudilova’s loss snaps a three-fight winning streak outside the UFC.
Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 107 results include:
- Lina Lansberg def. Lucie Pudilova via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 107, check out the UFC Events section of the site.
(MMAjunkie’s John Morgan and Simon Head contributed to this report on site in London.)
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